At the MOE conference in Nov. 2020, Ph.D. student Shuai DENG, supervised by Prof. Hon Fai CHAN, presented his findings on Comparing 2D Versus 3D culture of Hepatocytes in Different ECM environments for Liver Tissue Engineering. 

Cells are surrounded by extracellular matrix (ECM) which influences cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. While decellularized ECM can provide a natural niche for cell culture, it is important to identify the essential components in the ECM environment. So far, most approaches about investigating the interaction between cells and ECM were based on 2D cell culture which cannot fully mimic the in vivo state. Compared with 2D cell culture, 3D culture such as producing spheroid can better mimic the condition in vivo. He systematically compared the effect of different ECM components on hepatocyte hepatic functions in 2D and 3D culture. His findings illustrate the broad application potential of this biofabrication approach in identifying optimal ECM composition(s) for engineering 3D tissue, and elucidating defined ECM cues for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This work was published on Biofabrication (IF: 10.02).